Fire Roasted Sriracha Chicken Wings

The leaves have turned from green to golden, red, and yellow. The morning air is crisp, fragrant with a scent of autumn.

Crap. Summer really is over.

But on the bright side, college basketball is gearing up. Tonight several games were on and Brett, his girlfriend, and a friend were over watching a few games. And what better game food is there than chicken wings?

I've been wanting to try Iron Chef Michael Symon's Spicy Sriracha Chicken Wings ever since I saw them over at Hot Sauce Daily when they did their version. I just hadn't gotten around to it but tonight I gave it a spin. They dropped the cinnamon from the marinade and I subbed basil for cilantro (which made sense, given it was a Thai based recipe).

I used my basic 30-20-10 recipe for wings on the Big Green Egg. (375f degrees indirect heat, 30 minutes-flip, 20 minutes-flip, toss in sauce, 10 minutes, remove). That technique has given me consistently great results. It would probably work in an oven, but I KNOW it works on a grill.

Fire Roasted Sriracha Chicken Wings

Ingredients
24 ea chicken wingettes and drumettes (see this post for video on how to cut them)
1/8 cup coriander, ground
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
1/8 cup olive oil
1/3 cup Sriracha sauce
8 Tablespoons butter
1/4 cup basil, fresh chopped
1 ea lime zest
4 cloves roasted garlic

Instructions
Make a marinade with coriander, cumin, salt, and oil. Marinade wings for 4 hours in a ziploc bag.

Over very low heat, melt butter and wisk with basil, lime zest, sriracha sauce, and garlic.

Get your Big Green Egg or grill up to 375f on indirect heat and cook for 30 minutes. Flip chicken.

Cook another 20 minutes and toss in the sauce.

Cook 10 more minutes, to crisp up the sauce. Serve with the usual suspects (celery and blue cheese or ranch).

TIP: To get a nice crisp skin when roasting your wings instead of frying, start with a "dry" wing. Let them sit exposed in the fridge for 30 minutes or so.

TIP: Don't crowd your wingettes and drumettes. You want your hot air to get around all sides to avoid the dreaded "rubbery skin". (I love the flames jumping up at the bottom of this shot.)

TIP: "Grid Extenders" or a raised rack are great ways to increase the capacity of your cooker, but just remember that the higher rack is a good 10-15 degrees (f) hotter than the lower rack. So rotate the wings from top to bottom about half way through.

TIP: When serving appetizer portions, serve with individual dipping cups of ranch/blue cheese dressing. No one likes a "double dipper".

I was surprised. The flavor was not just a simple insult of heat. It was much more complex. In fact, it started off with the taste of the spice. Wow, it really wasn't that hot at all after the first bite. It took a few bites for the "kick" to build , layer after layer. Then the warmth crescendo-ed into a torrid heat. This will sound completely dorky, but it reminded me of The Ride of The Valkyries, one of my favorite songs to perform in symphonic band, back in the day.

But it was a damn good wing.

Grant Miller Cooks!

Hi there! I'm kind of busy tonight. After our "preemptive holiday gorging work out", I rushed around to make a quick weeknight dinner and threw a couple of ribeyes on the grill. (Rubbed with Weber's Chicago Steak Seasoning, 6 minutes at 550f, flipping every 2 minutes.)

Since I don't have time to do a full post, I have a special guest chef for you all. Media mogul and comedy genius, Grant Miller has taken time from his incredibly busy schedule at Grant Miller Media to share a special holiday recipe with us.

If you haven't read Mr. Miller's hilarious blog, do yourself a favor and get over there and read up a bit. He does a great job of playing straight man to his own acerbic wit.

Grant Miller's Mom's Honey-Buttermilk Cornbread
Thanksgiving is almost here and that got me thinking of my mom's old recipes. She always began baking and cooking a week before Thanksgiving, filling our house with delicious holiday aromas. This recipe is a favorite and growing up she always invited me into the kitchen to help. I did it so often, I committed it to memory. So here now is my mom's famous Honey-Buttermilk Cornbread recipe just as she explained it to me every Thanksgiving. I hope your family likes it as much as I did:

• 1 1/2 cups of flour.
• 1 1/4 cups of corn meal
• 2 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda.
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder.
• 1 teaspoon of salt.
• 3 large eggs.
• 1 cup of buttermilk.
• 1/4 cup of melted butter.
• 1/4 cup of honey.
• 2 failed marriages.
• 2 ungrateful little kids.

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Carefully grease a 9-inch square baking pan with butter. I said butter. Don't you have any butter? No. Margarine is not the same thing. The recipe calls for butter. So get out the butter.

Okay, now grease it carefully. I said carefully, Grant. Aren't you listening? Okay. Get all the corners. Here, just let me do it.

Okay. Now we're going to combine - will you stop watching TV? I need your help. Now are you going to help or not? Okay. Now combine the flour, the corn meal, the baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. Does this look like a mixing bowl to you? Maybe a mixing bowl for midgets, but not us. Get out my large mixing bowl will you? It's under the microwave where it's always been.

Listen - turn off the TV right now, mister. You said you'd help so come on. Turn. It. Off. Now. Mister.

Get out another bowl and whisk the eggs with the buttermilk, butter and honey. Are you doing that? Here, let me see. No. No this is all wrong. Here get out my spatula. Let me get this out before you ruin it. Okay now mix those things together. And don't just mix one area. You have to do the whole thing otherwise it's chunky. And no one likes chunky corn bread. If they complain I'll just tell them you made it.

Now lets combine our bowls. Oh, could you get that? Mrs. Boehm said she'd be calling. Is it Mrs. Boehm? It's not? Okay. Then tell Brian you'll call him back. No. You cannot have the car tonight, I have to drop off the appraisal at the bank and need to go the library to make copies. Why can't Brian drive? It's always you driving. Does he at least offer to pay for gas?

Okay. See. I mixed the two bowls while you were talking to your boyfriend and I poured them into the pan. Here, open the oven and set the timer for 20 to 25 minutes.

While the corn bread bakes, pour one glass of Lancers and sit at the table, quietly weeping. Let simmer for 20 years or until your son decides to publicly poke fun at the whole episode in a loving yet brutally honest way.


Thank you Mr. Miller!

For the record, that is a real recipe but the failed marriages and ungrateful kids are optional.

Rioja Style Potato and Chorizo Sausage Stew

Yeah, I know.

That name just sounds so fancy. A dish from the Basque country-side of Spain, blah, blah, blah.

But this is soooooo easy to make, uses only a handful of ingredients, and is inexpensive.

Rioja-Style Potato & Chorizo Sausage Stew
Food & Wine

Ingredients
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium Spanish onion, finely chopped
2 Spanish chorizo sausages (about 3 ounces each), cut into 1/4 -inch dice
5 baking potatoes, peeled and cut into coarse 1-inch chunks (see Note)
1 tablespoon hot paprika
Kosher salt (I used 1 Tablespoon)

Instructions
In a large nonreactive saucepan, warm the olive oil over moderate heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the chorizo and cook, stirring, until heated through, about 1 minute. Add the potatoes, paprika and 1 tablespoon of kosher salt; stir well. Add 4 cups of water and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, partially cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are tender when pierced and the stew has thickened slightly, about 30 minutes.

Uncover the stew, increase the heat to high and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, to incorporate the oil on the surface into the stew. If desired, crush some of the potatoes against the side of the pan to thicken the stew. Season with kosher salt if necessary. Ladle the stew into shallow soup bowls and serve at once.

Note: Here's an old peasant trick for cutting the potatoes so the maximum amount of their starch is released into the stew: instead of cutting a potato all the way through with a knife, insert the knife tip at one end of the potato and then work it like a wedge to break off chestnut-size pieces.

See? Isn't that easy? To be a bit more specific about the author's note. I tried to do it on a whole potato with little success. It worked better once I halved a potato, stuck the tip down to the cutting board and then broke off a wedge.

That worked much better. It does make for a more rustic "cut" plus she says it releases more of the starch into the stew.

I was tempted to do so much with this. I thought about using broth instead of water. I thought about adding some herbs. I thought about using garnish. I was worried about the amount of oil added to saute the onion and knowing the chorizo would add even more but it turned out great. But since this was a "peasant dish", I kept coming back to WWPD. (What would peasant do?)

We served it up with a crusty bread for soppin' and it was abso-posi-lutely perfect on a cool, drizzly night.
I'd definitely make this again and won't change a thing.

Site Renovations and Pulled Pork

Welcome to the new Nibble Me This. Watch your step, we're still finishing up the renovations.

A huge thanks to my pal Brandi from Excess Baggage for doing the design work. I think she did a great job. She's a flight attendant but in her spare time, she also does custom blog template designs if you're interested. Brandi is a friend that we met through blogging over 5 years ago back during the AOL Journal days and she's visited us several times here in Knoxville.

We've been working on it this week via instant messaging. I didn't like one of the pictures for the header so I told her I wanted to redo it. When she found out that I smoked a pork butt last night just so I could get a better pulled pork sandwich shot, I believe her exact words were:

Brandi: Serious?
Chris: Serious!
Brandi: OMG, I'm totally going to make fun of you for that forever!

And she will, trust me;)

So anyway, yeah, I smoked a pork butt last night on the Big Green Egg. It was a HUGE butt, 10 and 1/2 pounds of pork shoulder. This isn't a step by step guide or a recipe, just some tips.

Injection
An injection imparts flavor deep into the meat, since the rub can only affect the outer surfaces. It also adds moisture, although that really isn't a problem on the Egg, but I really notice a difference if using my offset smoker. I have used Chris Lilly's pork injection for several years with great results.

Of course, he has used it for years with much better results, like multiple world championships. The recipe is in his book Big Bob Gibson's BBQ Book but it is also the worst kept secret in the BBQ world so you can find it online.

TIP: Injecting your butt while it is still packaged (as pictured above) helps reduce the accidental splashes as you are pulling the hypodermic needle out of the shoulder yet still applying pressure on the injector.

Rub
After injecting (if you're injecting), it's time to rub your butt.

On the back deck.

In plain view of your neighbors.

I make my own beef and chicken rubs and love them. But when it comes to pulled pork, my weapon of choice is *gasp* a commercially prepared rub.

I haven't been able to do better than Billy Bones Competition Rub (green label) since I first used them two years ago, so if you can't lick 'em, join 'em. I've tried his rub against my rubs and other commercial ones. Billy has eons of experience and produces a consistent, high quality line of BBQ products.

TIP: Unlike ribs, butts have a low surface to mass ratio, so you want to give them a pretty heavy dose of dry rub. Don't be shy. Billy says, "Rub your butt all you want, we'll make more." (okay, he doesn't but he should and then make that into a t-shirt.)

"The Sweet Blue Smoke"
When smoking, you don't want a heavy thick white smoke. That smoke is full of nasty critters that are part of incomplete combustion and they will do bad things to your meat. That means your fire really isn't ready yet, even if it's at the temperature you want.

BBQ folks refer to a good smoke as "blue smoke". During the day, it's almost invisible but last night I was able to catch a few shots as it went from white (bad) to "blue" (good).

"It's Done When It's Done"
BBQ'rs often use that reply when someone asks when the food will be ready. If they say that, they aren't being a smart ass. Even though we try to control a million variables and use time tested processes, sometimes the food has a mind of it's own. Last night was a case in point.

I have smoked countless pork butts and almost every time, it takes 1.5 hours a pound at 250f (dome temp, 225f grate level temp).

So I planned 15+ hours for this 10.5 butt. Instead, it was done 4:30am after only 10.5 hours.

Another oddity. Butts usually hit a "stall point" at about 160f where the internal temperature just stops going up. It hits a "plateau" and won't budge for a while, could be hours. Well last night might went straight through 160, 170, and up to 180f.
If it ever did stall, it was between 2am and 4am and at a temp over 180f. I dozed off so I missed it. But have any of you smokers ever seen a butt totally skip the plateau or have one that high of a temp? I was really thrown off by that.


TIP: Your butt is done when it hits an internal temperature of 195f. Another way to tell is to grab the bone and give it a wiggle.

When the butt is done, it will pull clean out like so. (Fall off the bone pork butt = good. Fall of the bone ribs = overcooked)

This butt pulled very easily into nice full pieces. I prefer pulled pork like this as opposed to chopped bbq pork. That's just a personal preference.

There was very little waste to this pork butt, it yielded a good percentage of meat. You can sometimes lose up to 50% of the precooked weight during the cooking process. Not this time.

Alexis stole her first piece of the cutting board and said, "MMMM! You don't even need sauce for this."
"Yeah," I agreed, "Isn't that the whole point of real BBQ?"

I made some cole slaw and made myself a hand stretching sandwich that about put me into hibernation.

In summary, I had a pork butt that cooked faster than usual, had a higher yield than usual, and tasted good. Man I've got a great butt!!!

Shellfish Saturday

Alexis and I had a fun date night last night. Our youngest son had a sleepover birthday party and our older son had a date with his girlfriend. So we had dinner at Dead End BBQ. A month after opening, they seem to be doing well on our third visit. We had a 15 minute wait for seating and the quality of the food was very good again.

We we're going to see Men Who Stare At Goats but the reviews were so mixed that I just wasn't sure if I wanted to see it or not. Anybody see it yet?

Instead, we went to Sidesplitters Comedy Club and caught April Macie's show. She was hilarious. Raunchy as can be (she has an "irreverent brand of overtly sexual humor"), but completely hilarious.

Speaking of comedy, anyone remember the 80's song "Wet Dream" by Kip Adotta? It was full of fish puns like "Abalone, you're just being shellfish!" Well, today was.....
On the menu was (Yes, we actually have a small menu chalkboard in our kitchen)

Barbecue Bacon Wrapped Shrimp with Basil Stuffing
Seared Scallops with Japanese Steakhouse-style Golden Shrimp Sauce
Ruth's Chris Steak House Barbecue Shrimp (New Orleans Style)

The Barbecue Bacon Wrapped Shrimp with Basil Stuffing is from Chris Lilly's Big Bob Gibson's BBQ Book published this May.

I was so lucky that I got to meet and assist Mr. Lilly prepping for a BBQ cooking class earlier this year and this was one of the dishes he presented. You can google the recipe name but what you'll find is not the same as how it appears in the book. The process is the same but the sauce is not. You can buy the book online, but here's a hint about the ingredients though.
Notice all of the page tabs I have marked in the book in the above picture? That's because it's a great BBQ book and those are the recipes I want to try. It is a great read for both the novice and experienced BBQ enthusiast. (hint hint Christmas present for your Q friends.)

Two other tips he gave were
1) use THIN bacon with this dish and
2) cut the bacon on a bias like this. It gives you two long sides an inch longer than if you just cut it straight in half. That gives you a edge piece to tuck in and secure the wrapped bacon.

Another tip Mr. Lilly passed on was press down on the assembled shrimp to flatten it a bit so it will stand upright on its own before your put it on the grill. So when you put them together, make sure they can stand up. You don't want to be fiddling with them over a 400f fire.

Kinda look like synchronized swimmers here, don't they?

After cooking indirect for the 14 minutes at 400f, dip them in the sauce

and put them back on for 3 more minutes.

Mine were good....

But were not near as good as the ones that Chris Lilly made. The shrimp was perfectly done and the flavor was perfect, but the bacon was not crisp like his was. He didn't pre-cook the bacon that I saw, so I'm thinking the bacon I used wasn't thin enough.

I'll post the other two recipes later this week. Right now I'm busy smoking my wife's huge butt.

I mean, she brought home a 10.5 lb pork butt (butt of the shoulder, not the pig's ass) and I'm smoking that hunk o' oink for the next 15 hours for some bodacious pulled pork.

Probing Questions About Thermometers

One of the most important pieces of equipment in the kitchen is an instant read thermometer. Having an accurate, fast thermometer helps you cook perfectly done meat. Well, sure, that and it helps keep you from killing all of your family and guests with an e-coli infused chicken served with a salmonella reduction sauce.

But there are so many options out there, what one is the right one for you? I can't tell you that. But I currently own 9 different ones and several different types, so I can give you my feedback on them. This isn't a comprehensive review, rather just some general info and my thoughts about the different types.

Analog Instant Read Thermometers
These are what most people think of when they think of instant read thermometers. It's the standard dial type thermometer that you see stuffed in a chef's sleeve. Temp range from 0-220f.

Pros: Inexpensive ($5), easily available, no batteries needed. Can be calibrated.
Cons: Slow to come to temp, instant is relative.

Digital Instant Read Thermometers
As of today, the government has NOT phased out analog thermometers for digital and you do not need a special coupon for a converter box.
Pros: Generally easier to read and faster.
Cons: More expensive than analog ($15 up to $90) Batteries can die at inopportune times and finding replacement batteries can be a PITA. Cheap ones can't be calibrated, so if they lose calibration, you have to buy a new one.
Some examples include:

Big Green Egg (~$30)
It's no secret that I absolutely LOVE the Big Green Egg smoker/grill. But their thermometer? No so much. It looks like a Porsche (Thermapen) but accelerates like a city bus (see comparison below).

Thermapen ($90, temp range -58 to 572f)
The benchmark in thermometers. These babies are fast, accurate, and have the best reputation out there. These use a thermocouple instead of a thermistor to register temperatures. You can calibrate a Thermapen.

Taylor Weekend Warrior ($18, temp range -45 to 450f)
Not as fast as a thermapen, but based on the price and performance? Hard to beat this one for value.

Remote Probe Thermometers ($16 - $50)
These use separate probe and reading unit that lets you keep a constant eye on the temp of your dish without opening and closing the smoker/grill/oven door. The ones below are Taylor ($16 at Wallyworld), but I also like Accurite and Maverick brands. Read the directions carefully because ones with rubber coated sheaths are limited to oven/grill temps below 400f. The plain braided metal ones can go into higher temps.

Pros: Great for longer cooks, you can see how the dish is coming to temperature. You can set temperature alarms so you get notified when you hit a target internal temp.
Cons: Bulky, tangles up drawer space. The probe wires can go bad and getting replacements can be a pain. TIP: Covering the wire with a bit of foil protects it and extends the life of the probe.

I.....eerrrrrrr, the Labs at NMT did a quick little test to see how fast and accurate these meters read. I tried them all in a pot of rapidly boiling water, which given elevation and barometric pressure that day was a standard temp of 209f. (Boiling point calculator)

All of the thermometers were within 1 degree, so let's just call it even for accuracy.

But how long it took each thermometer to correctly register the boiling point varied greatly.
BGE - 19 seconds
Analog dial - 14 seconds
Taylor remote - 9 seconds
Taylor Weekend Warrior - 6 seconds
Thermapen - 3 seconds

Sixteen seconds of difference might not sound like a big deal. But consider fillet mignon for an example. I normally cook those at 600f for only 6 minutes. If I am cooking six fillets and using the slowest of these thermometers, it would take me almost two extra minutes of cooking time to temp check all six steaks. The steaks I wanted medium rare would now be cooked medium to medium well. So seconds can make a big difference.

So what are your thoughts? Do you use a thermometer or just go by times/cooking temps? Do you have any thermometer tips? Do you have a favorite thermometer brand or style?

Intentional Re-works

People who have worked in the grocery or food industry know what "re-works" are. It is when you take one item that has either been compromised, leftover, or is nearing it's expiration date and "re-work" it into another item to sell faster.

For example, in the produce department of a store, you might have onions & peppers that have a bad spot on one part of them. You chop off the bad spot, slice up the rest and sell it as a "stir fry mix".

Another example is last month, one of my favorite restaurants was re-working their leftover prime rib into a beef stroganoff special.

But re-working can be a great thing when you do it on purpose. We like to cook up some foods on the weekend to make easy dinners later during the week. Remember that purdy smoked chicken I made Friday night, just to have some pulled chicken on hand? So far, this is what we've "re-worked" as....

Chicken Nachos
Alexis and I topped blue and yellow nachos with the reheated chicken, green onion, diced tomato, red pepper, cilantro, chopped black olives, lettuce, cheese, spicy BBQ sauce, and mauga sauce.

Pulled Chicken
Brett ate it by itself for lunch, topped only with mauga sauce.

Chicken Wrap
His girlfriend ate it in a tortilla with lettuce, onion, and cheese.

Chicken Alfredo Pizza
Doctored a jar alfredo sauce with some fresh roasted garlic (tossed in oil and salt, roasted at 350f for 50 minutes).

I spooned the sauce onto a pizza dough that was pre-crisped on a 500f grill on indirect heat for about 3 minutes and then topped with the pulled chicken, chopped basil, oregano, thyme and mozzarella cheese slices.

As it nears the end, I added some more chicken and herbs.

It came out beautifully.

We could have stopped there, but didn't. Trevor wanted to make his own pizza. He spooned on a red sauce and topped his with pepperoni and bacon. (Yes, our poor stove is relegated to acting as counter space many times. I bet it HATES our Big Green Egg.)

And then more pepperoni on top.

Mexican Pizza
Yeah, we weren't done. This one was the smoked chicken, some left over pico de gallo (chopped red onion, chopped tomato, cilantro), oregano and more mozzarella because I forgot to use the Mexican blend of cheeses that we had.

This one turned out to be my favorite, when it was really just a way to get rid of the extra pico de gallo.
All of the dishes so far have been superb and relatively easy.

Interesting Bit
I can cook up to 18 hours in the Big Green Egg at 250f with one load of coal. (I have heard of people going longer than that, I just haven't had to.)

Cooking at 500-700f temps, I went through the same amount of coal tonight in about 2 hours.

Special link for BBQ Brethren members:
Only you guys would/might understand this: Pizza On A UDS.

That one's for you, bigabyte.